WASHINGTON  -  Health care reform has always been a tough issue in U.S. politics, but a public relations nightmare is quickly turning into a national crisis for American seniors.

 

Americans are the best customers of the pharmaceutical industry, purchasing more than half of the world’s supply of prescription drugs. Yet the prices we pay for these medications are also the highest in the world – not good publicity for drug makers.  

 

Congress has passed, and President Bush has signed, a prescription drug benefit bill to spend at least $400 billion to lower prescription drug costs for Americans over the next ten years.  During the same time frame, however, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that American seniors alone will spend $1.8 trillion on filling their prescriptions.  Clearly, this is also not good press for the government.

 

Unfortunately, the new law overlooks commonsense solutions to the problem of skyrocketing prescription drug prices – it may even encourage inflation in U.S. drug costs.  Without a variety of proven cost-saving solutions, we are left with a one-dimensional approach.

 

Among the steps not being taken: Drug efficacy measures to ensure doctors are prescribing the best, lowest-cost medicines to their patients.  Increased access to effective generic alternatives to prescription drugs, which already save U.S. consumers $8-10 billion every year.  The ability for Medicare to negotiate drug prices on behalf of its 44 million beneficiaries, a practice successfully employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

 

And finally, market access to imported prescriptions drugs would represent unprecedented savings in the American pharmaceutical markets. For example, Premarin, used to prevent and manage osteoporosis, costs $97.99 from Walgreens and $37.36 (USD) from a Canadian pharmacy. The same scenario plays out for medicines to fight high cholesterol, cancer, depression, and other ailments that require an intensive treatment regimen including prescription drugs.

 

The smiling faces in drug ads belie this sad situation.

 

Overseas, the same medicines sold at home cost consumers an average of 35 percent less than they cost in the U.S. Of that $1.8 trillion in expected prescription drug costs, a 35 percent savings would mean $630 billion back in the pockets of American senior citizens on fixed incomes.

 

Even though crossing the border to bring back large supplies of prescription drugs is illegal in the U.S., millions of Americans go to Canada or Mexico to see their pharmacist. Even more purchase reimported medicines online. A policy of market access would make legal for these Americans and for certified pharmacies and wholesalers in selected foreign nations what is now only permissible for large drug companies. Supplemented by access to generics and better information for doctors, market access would be a powerful shift of purchasing power to the American consumer.

 

In combination, these measures provide the right prescription to put significant downward pressure on drug prices. Drug companies spend millions of dollars each year on advertising, but it is not enough to make us forget the images of American senior citizens skipping months of medications, cutting pills in half, and forgoing good nutrition in favor of expensive prescription drugs.

 

As a member of a bipartisan coalition of House and Senate members, I am working in Congress to make importation legal for Americans who rely on prescription drugs.

 

A policy of importation would require that the Food and Drug Administration assure that the supply of prescription drugs be subject to a strict set of “chain of custody” requirements. In fact, the standards for pharmaceuticals would be stricter than existing regulations for imported food products.

 

Drug manufacturers already import 40 percent of the pharmaceuticals consumed in the U.S. from overseas.  By extending this privilege to a network of licensed wholesalers and pharmacists, we could begin importing the lower prices that ought to accompany the drugs.

 

And importation would be much safer than the existing alternative for American seniors who now rely on the Internet to fill their prescriptions.  Advanced technologies, including blister packs and the same anti-counterfeiting ink used on the $20 bill, are mandated in the bill.  The best defense against counterfeits, however, is lower prices to eliminate a lucrative black market.

 

Lastly, even drug companies would benefit from reasonable prices and safe supplies.  There is no better publicity for the value of good pharmaceuticals than a lower price tag.  Now there is an ad campaign everybody could be happy about.